69% Of Tweets About Gus Johnson’s Barca-Bayern Commentary Were Negative

How well did Gus Johnson commentate on the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg between Barcelona and Bayern Munich that was shown live on FX today?

According to Tweetfeel, a sentiment analysis tool that measures positive and negative messages on Twitter, 69% of the tweets posted about Gus Johnson were negative.

A real-time search of the feedback about Gus Johnson on Twitter can be found here.

While not an exact science (and only a small sample size), the results do provide an independent measurement to how Johnson performed today. Personally, I’ve given up hope of Gus Johnson improving as a commentator, and while I would be pleased if FOX Soccer decided to put an end to this Gus Johnson Experiment, I’m already looking ahead to next season of the Premier League where NBC will be a massive improvement.

Tweetfeel compares search results against a number of indicators to determine whether someone is generally positive or negative towards a term. Tweetfeel then applies their complex algorithms to make sure the results fairly display the true feelings.

Gus Johnson will return to the commentary booth this Sunday for the match between Manchester United and Chelsea that will be televised live on FOX Soccer at 11am ET. After that, Johnson is scheduled to commentate on the FA Cup Final and UEFA Champions League Final this month.

About The Author

Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who was born and raised in Wales, has lived in Florida since 1984, and supported Swansea City since 1979. Last but not least, he got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.

46 Comments

krazymunkyMay 1, 2013

Totally forgot he was commentating on champions league final… i guess it was a blessing in disguise that ill be at a wedding during the game.

As much as I wanted Gus to succeed…he isnt very good at soccer commentary.
Let him experiment on lesser matches and not important ones please.

My favorite awful call of the game is when Rafinha blasted a shot wide and then Gus Johnson began announcing the replay as if it thought it was live action. This guy is a clown he doesn’t know soccer.. he calls the wrong players name 75% of the time, there are long awkward pauses like he has no idea what he is watching whats in front of him.. please for FOX sake give me back Martin Tyler and Gary Neville and let Gus Johnsons next major game be in 2018 (outside of MLS games until he gets.. because lets be serious no ones watching those gameswill anyways)

I was looking forward to the game on Sunday – now that I know that this moron is commentating, have to find some alternative. At one point today he shouts about a ball that had gone over the bar …. over the box. At 5 or 6 nil in the aggregate with about twenty minutes to go he was talking about the POSSIBILITY of an all German final. I used to get mad listening to the Irish Tommy Smith and all his cliches but bad and all as that was, at least Smith knew soccer.

Is “Irish Tommy Smith” related to Tommy Smyth who works for ESPN? The one that “knows” soccer…since he is still alive.

I guess it could be said that “it takes a moron to know one.”

And there will be some that will say that I’m being “overly critical and picky.” Well, just read some of the crap that Gus Johnson is being critised about.

I am not and never will be a Gus Johnson fan. At the same time, reading all of this crap about Johnson while not holding the beloved British commentators to the same standards, it ridiculous and self serving.

Johnson is terrible, so there are plenty of major valid points to criticise. Why not just stay with the lack of soccer knowledge and lack of ability to anticipate what will happen? That is enough to ruin the game. Why worry about name pronunciations? Unless, you are going to hold Martin Tyler and Gary Neville to the same standards.

Oh dear Mr. Fog, you really miss the point if you are upset because you think Johnson is being unfairly criticized for mispronouncing names. That he can’t is because he is obviously unfamiliar with the players and has no idea who they are, despite the mountain of statistics he reads out. There is no double standard here. You can rest assured that were Martin Tyler and Gary Neville to commit so many howlers’ people would be calling for their heads too. And it is pricesly because Johnson is being held to the higher standards of Tyler and Neville that he is being so roundly lampooned. This is nothing to do with his being an American so put your silly flag away.

The thing is though; I didn’t criticize him for this. My beef is that he clearly doesn’t know the game. That I think he is a moron is because he has the arrogance to believe he can do the job. I doubt Martin Tyler or Gary Neville would be stupid enough to think that they could call an NBA play off game.

Regarding Tommy Smyth, thank you for spell checking his name. Suggest though you keep up your study of English grammar. One day you’ll get it.

Oh man. Where was he hiding all these years? Probably his first time seeing a football game. And ienesta, only the third ranked footballer after messi and ronaldo this year. It might have worked better if they pulled a random guy from a sports bar for commentary.

FFS, are we still going on about this? Yes he’s terrible but Fox has committed to him and looks like Ian Wright too. No amount of moaning on here is going to make any difference. The nice thing is we won’t have to put up with it next season, at least for the EPL. The world cup is a worry. We could have another Dave O’Brien/ Marcel Balboa style sh*tfest on our hands. Hopefully Fox see the light before 2014 and bring in some big guns for the world cup. I don’t mind GJ covering the US team but I will be really upset if he gets the England games. Assuming we make it of course.

If people moan enough, FOX will change him out. They are not in the Gus Johnson business. They’re in the broadcasting business. They thought that by putting a well known, popular American broadcaster in, they could pull a wider audience. All we can do as the viewing public is to let FOX know that we don’t like him. What sounds like bitching is actually democracy at work.

Now, Smokey, as a humorist yourself you should recognize that at least some of the commentary about Gus has turned humorous. Johnson has already become a parody of himself. You listen just waiting for the next shoe to drop. It’s only a matter of time. 😉

I hear you. It just makes me laugh how worked up people are. I think there are some bandwagon jumpers and out and out trolls on here.

How many of you on here moaning about Gus are yanks? He basically sounds like every American commentator. Constant stats, shouting whenever something looks like it might happen. If you grew up here then you should be used to it. The only people on here who are entitled to complain are the expats who grew up with the BBC high quality production.

How will “Fox see the light before 2014 and bring in some big guns” if people don’t keep voicing their displeasure? If nothing is said, Fox will go on thinking that people are accepting the juvenile commentary.

It was Fox’s poor insight that made this decision in the first place. You can’t expect them to correct a mistake when they feel they’ve IMPROVED on the product by bringing in this knucklehead.

Johnson was poor, and I never want to hear him again – but Ian Wright was shocking. Thick as two planks, terrible accent and pronunciation, but above all, for a commentator, zero understanding of basic grammar.

For a commentator, color or play-by-play, the need is to communicate. How can you do that when you don’t even understand rudimentary grammar?

Awful.

As irritating as Ian Darke/Steve McManaman are, they would have been light years better than these two.

The coverage was just awful, I had to turn the sound down ater 20 minutes.
Gaffer do you have an address for the person who makes the decisions at Fox? I want to beg them to please take Johnson and Wright as far away from the commentary booth as possible. The FA cup and Champion’s League will be ruined by these two baffoons.

it was painful hearing these two clowns call this game especially when you know the best commentating team at the moment, Martin Tyler & Gary Neville were doing the match.

FOX your whole operation and whoever is in charge of it is becoming a very big joke.
Seriously this isn’t funny anymore.
You look like a bunch of amateurs that have no clue or training on how to do TV and football! (YES, it’s football not soccer. the other one is “runball” or “run while holding the ball” at best)

I am just watching the match and damn Gus if frigging poor but Ian Wright is a total muppet, he thinks he is Gary Neville with his “insights”. News for you Wright you are NOT Gary Neville, you suck, Gus sucks and FOX can F right off.

Ah, thanks for this forum. I needed a place to vent. How annoying can two commentators be?
One continuously “teaches” us what Barca should do. Repeating the same useless comments 100 times. The other keeps calling Iniesta-> Ienesta, and cannot cite true barca colors. Really guys, this is the best pair you can put up for a semi final? I would prefer a robot just calling who has the ball (with the right pronounciation).

I have just read an article about Gus Johnson in today’s NYT.He is handling the commentary for the CL Final at Wembley today. Thanks Fox for spoiling the game for me. I will be watching without sound! According to the article he only learned the off-side rule 12 months ago.If you want to “train” American soccer announcers then get them started on MLS. Fox, you are ruining the viewing experience. For games as significant as this use the BBC or Sky commentary. Your biggest mistake of all is to use Ian Wright. In the UK, no ex-footballer has been given more chances to make it as part of a commentary team on radio and TV than he has. He has failed every time. Why then are you using him? If only this was on ESPN2 and we could have Ian Darke and Steve McMannaman. Anyone but Johnson and Wright….please, please, please!

Went to FoxSoccer2go as recommended in a previous comment to see if I could pick up a Martin Tyler commentary. This is how the game is listed on their web-site:
Borussia Dortmund v Bayern Munich (Gus Johnson Commentary)
Thanks for the warning Fox. You have saved me and other football fans our hard earned money!Now I will have to watch the game with the sound turned off. Here’s an idea. When you go to a game you don’t get a commentary. All you get is the sound of the crowd. How about giving us an option. Commentary with crowd noise or crowd noise only?